Abstract - The main objective of the current work is to utilize

waste heat from the exhaust gases of a diesel engine, large part
of this waste heat around 35% which goes with exhaust gases
can be recovered by vaporizing the fuel through a small heat
exchanger and convert it in to useful work. A stationary four
stroke, single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine of 3.5 kW
was retrofitted to operate in vapour induction dual fuel mode.
To achieve homogeneous mixture, diesel fuel was inducted in
the vapour form. The heat exchanger outlet was mounted in
the intake system to provide diesel vapour, which was mixed
with air and inducted into the cylinder during the intake
stroke. Experiments were conducted with various flow rates of
diesel vapour induction in dual fuel mode and the performance
results were compared with the conventional diesel fuel
operation. The results show that there was improvement in the
engine performance as the brake thermal efficiency increased
while the brake specific fuel consumption decreased. The air
fuel ratio has increased while there was a slight decrease in
volumetric efficiency for the vapour induction case. The results
have shown that a partial HCCI combustion with higher
efficiency can be achieved.

I ndex Terms-Diesel vapour Induction, HCCI, Heat
exchanger, Performance.
I. INTRODUCTION
IESEL engines are most widely used in automobiles
and various other fields like marine or power
generation units. Performance and environmental
requirements of Diesel engines have steadily increased over
the last thirty years, which in turn has required an increase
in the sophistication of employed control strategies.
Advances in model based control over this period have been
one of the keys in meeting the demands placed on modern
combustion technologies.
Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is a
combustion concept that constitutes a valid approach to
achieve high efficiencies and low nitrogen oxides and
particulate emissions in comparison with traditional
compression ignition (CI) direct injection (DI) engines [1].
Although HCCI combustion was demonstrated about 20
years ago, only the recent advances made in airflow, fuel
and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) electronic control have
made it feasible. HCCI has been successfully applied both to
spark ignition (SI) and compression ignition (CI) engines,
and proved to be fuel flexible since it has been achieved
with gaseous fuels such as propane or natural gas, as well as



The authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, P. A.
College of Engineering, Mangalore, Karnataka 574153, India.

*
Corresponding author (shanksks@gmail.com, (M): +919480169929)

Final year B. E. students.

liquid fuels like traditional gasoline or diesel fuels. HCCI is
characterised by the fact that the fuel and air are mixed
before the start of combustion and the mixture auto-ignites
as a result of the temperature increase in the compression
stroke. Thus HCCI is similar to SI in the sense that both
engines use premixed charge and similar to CI as both rely
on auto-ignition to initiate combustion [2]. The HCCI
process operates on the principle of having a lean, premixed,
homogeneous charge that reacts and burns volumetrically
throughout the cylinder as it is compressed by the piston [3].
The mixture can be prepared either internally or externally.
The premixed charge minimizes particulate emissions
because the combustion occurs simultaneously throughout
the cylinder volume rather than in the form of a flame front
which avoids the soot formation. Moreover, since the
combustion occurs without flame propagation, it leads to
lower gas temperatures, thus reducing NO
X
emissions [4].
Great efforts are nowadays devoted to the study of dual
mode combustion system in which traditional SI or CI
combustion is used for the operating conditions where HCCI
operation is more difficult [5-7].
Internal combustion engine convert about 25% to 35% of
the chemical energy contained in the fuel into the
mechanical energy. About 35% of the heat generated is lost
to the cooling medium and the remaining heat is dissipated
through the exhaust gases and other radiation losses. A
considerable amount of heat is transferred into walls of the
combustion chamber. Therefore it is necessary to provide
proper cooling specially to walls of the combustion chamber
to continuously remove about 30 to 35% of the total heat
[8]. For preheating the vegetable oils, which have very high
viscosity at room temperature, waste heat of exhaust gas
was utilized and hardware in the form of a counter-flow heat
exchanger was developed for this purpose [9]. Experimental
studies with diesel vapour induction have indicated that the
vapour induction has resulted in reduced emissions and
moderately better engine performance [10]. A reduction of
about 35% to 40% in NO
X
emissions and 30% to 40%
reduction in smoke emissions were obtained for diesel
vapour induction compared to conventional mode of
operation.
In the experimental work the diesel fuel is vaporized,
mixed with air and fed to the engine cylinder. In order to
vaporize the fuel, operating temperature must reach the
required vaporizing temperature. This is achieved using
heat exchanger in which heat is exchanged between liquid
diesel and exhaust gas. The performance of the conventional
and Diesel vapor inducted engine is compared and analyzed
for various performance characteristics.
Engine Performance Studies with Diesel Vapour
Induction in a Stationary Diesel Engine
Harish Kumar

, K. Pruthviraj Jois

, Prashanth Pai M, Chandrakanth V Pujar, Shankar K. S

*

D

II. EXPERIMENTAL WORK
A. Heat exchanger design
A shell and tube type heat exchanger was designed for
vapourising diesel fuel using the exhaust gas from the
engine. The heat exchanger design requires the following
input data: mass flow of exhaust gas, mass flow of diesel,
inlet temperature of diesel fluid, outlet temperature of diesel
fluid, exhaust gas temperature at inlet to exchanger,
diameter of tube, latent heat of vapourisation of diesel,
specific heat of diesel, specific heat of exhaust gas. Initially
the amount of heat transfer required to vapourise diesel oil is
calculated. Using standard heat transfer equations the inside
and outside heat transfer coefficients were calculated. The
Logarithmic Mean Temperature Difference is used to
determine the overall heat transfer coefficient. The heat
exchanger design equations were used to calculate the
required heat transfer surface area and the then the length of
the tube for multi-pass flow was determined. The materials
selected for the shell is galvanized iron and that for the tube
is copper.
B. Experimental setup and Procedure
Experiments were conducted on a modified single-
cylinder, water-cooled, direct injection diesel engine
developing 3.5 kW at 1500 rpm. It is directly coupled to a
rope brake dynamometer. The engine and the dynamometer
are interfaced to a control panel. Table 1 gives the
specifications of the setup. Chromel-alumel thermocouples
in conjunction with a digital temperature indicator were
used for measuring the temperatures of inlet air, cooling
water in & out and exhaust gas. Fuel consumption rate was
measured with a graduated burette and stopwatch. Air
consumption was measured with orifice meter fitted to air-
box. The fuel supply line for the heat exchanger was tapped
from the main fuel line. The rate of fuel flow through the
heat exchanger was measured using a burette system and
was controlled by valves. The rate of exhaust gas entering
the heat exchanger was controlled by means of flow
controlling valves and the flow rate was measured with an
orifice meter. The diesel vapour from the heat exchanger
was passed to the inlet manifold, where it was mixed with
inlet air. The line was insulated so as to minimize possibility
of vapour condensation. A drain system was put in the
vapour line before mixing with inlet air to drain out any
possible condensation of diesel vapour. The amount of drain
was also measured by a burette system. The total amount of
the fuel consumed is the sum of fuel injected and the vapour
inducted. The rate of vapour inducted was varied.
Engine performance test was conduced at various loads
with different diesel vapour flow rates at a constant engine
speed of 1500 rpm. The engine performance parameters like
brake power, brake thermal efficiency, brake specific fuel
consumption and air fuel ratio were evaluated. Initially
engine was run with conventional diesel fuel injection and
the performance test was carried out for baseline condition.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section the experimental results obtained are
discussed for various operating conditions with graphs.

TABLE 1: SPECIFICATIONS OF ENGINE SETUP
Make Kirloskar AV1
Power 5HP (3.5kW)
Bore 80 mm
Stroke length 110 mm
Compression Ratio 16.5:1
SFC 251g/kWh
Rated speed 1500 rpm

The legends shown in the graphs are having the following
meaning: BI: before vapour induction, AI: after vapour
induction.
A. Mass flow rate of fuel for constant vapor induction
The trends of mass flow rates (Mf) of diesel with brake
power are depicted in figure 1. It can be observed that the
fuel flow rate increases with increase in load thus the power
output. With vapor induction, the mass flow rate of fuel
reduces for all the loads when compared to the baseline
operation. The reason for the reduction may be the lesser
throttling losses with vapor induction. Also the amount of
vapor inducted depends on operating load which increases
with the increase in load.

Fig. 1: Mass flow rate of fuel v/s Brake power
B. Brake thermal efficiency
From the figure 2 the trends of brake thermal efficiency
(th) versus brake power shows that the efficiency increases
with increase in load as well as brake power. This parameter
determines how efficiently the fuel is used in the engine. It
was observed that brake thermal efficiency was better for
vapour induction. The reason for this may be more
homogeneous combustion with vapour induction.

Fig. 2: Brake thermal efficiency v/s Brake power

0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.62 1.818 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
M
a
s
s

F
l
o
w

R
a
t
e

(
k
g
/
h
r
)
Brake Power (kW)
Mf (BI)
Mf (AI)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1.62 1.818 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
B
r
a
k
e

T
h
e
r
m
a
l

E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y

(
%
)
Brake Power (kW)
th(BI)
th(AI)

C. Air-fuel ratio
Air-fuel (A/F) ratio gives an indication of amount of air
available for fuel to be burnt. In the figure 3, air-fuel ratio is
plotted against brake power. It can be observed that the air
fuel ratio has increased for vapour induction case when
compared to before induction condition, which may be due
to the lean burning leading to less fuel consumption.

Fig. 3: Air-fuel ratio v/s Brake power
D. Brake Specific Fuel Consumption
The trend of brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC)
with brake power is depicted in figure 4. Brake specific
consumption gives the fuel consumed for unit brake power
produced. It can be observed that brake specific fuel
consumption is reduced as the load increased. Trend shows
that BSFC is reduced for each load condition after
induction. It also depicts the reduction in BSFC is increasing
as the load increases.

Fig. 4: BSFC v/s Brake power
E. Volumetric efficiency
The trend of volumetric efficiency (v) with brake
power is depicted in figure 5. It can be observed that
volumetric efficiency decreases as the load increases. Also,
volumetric efficiency decreases as the rate of vapour
induction increases. The reason for reduction in the
volumetric efficiency may be that, the vapour induction into
the inlet manifold affects the volume of air sucked into the
system which might have decreased the air breathing
capacity. As the load increases more vapours are inducted
and volumetric efficiency further deceases as compared to
the before induction case.

Fig 5: Volumetric efficiency v/s Brake power
Comparison of performance characteristics for different
flow rate of diesel vapour induction
The performance characteristics are studied for
different flow rates of induction. The induction flow rates
maintained during experiment are, 0.020 kg/hr, 0.023 kg/hr,
and 0.026 kg/hr. These flow rates are represented as (i) (ii)
and (iii) respectively in the legends of the graphs shown
below.
A. Mass flow rate
From the figure 6 the plot suggests that the mass flow
rate required for same brake power is more in case of before
induction and it reduces for different rates of induction. The
fuel flow rate marginally deceases for case (iii) when
compared to all the other cases. This indicates that vapor
formation also increases with flow rate increase and the heat
exchanger designed is working satisfactorily.

Fig 6: Mass flow rate v/s Brake Power at different
Induction rates
B. Brake Thermal Efficiency
The trend depicted in figure 7 shows that the brake
thermal efficiency increases with the increase in the flow
rate of fuel through vapouriser. With 0.026 kg/hr of diesel
vapour induction, the brake thermal efficiency has increased
by 11.2% at full load condition. The thermal efficiency is
lowest in the case of neat diesel injection operation.

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1.62 1.818 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
A
i
r
-
F
u
e
l

R
a
t
i
o
Brake Power (kW)
(A/F) (BI)
(A/F) (AI)
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
1.62 2 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
B
S
F
C

(
k
g
/
k
W
-
h
r
)
Brake Power (kW)
BSFC (BI)
BSFC (AI)
68
69
70
71
72
1.62 1.818 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y

(
%
)
Brake Power (kW)
v(BI)
v(AI)
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.622 1.879 2.168 2.456 2.711 2.905
M
a
s
s

f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

(
k
g
/
h
r
)
Brake Power (kW)
mf(AI) (i) Mf (AI) (ii) mf(AI) (iii) Mf (BI)


Fig 7: Brake Thermal Efficiency v/s Brake Power at
different Induction rates
C. Air-Fuel Ratio
Figure 8 shows the air fuel ratio is lowest for direct
injection and it increase with the different induction rates.
As the induction rates increases, the air fuel ratio increases
thus indicating that the combustion is lean burn process,
which can also be inferred by the trends of fuel consumption
rates.

Fig 8: Air-Fuel ratio v/s Brake Power at different
Induction rates

Fig 9: BSFC v/s Brake Power at different Induction rates
D. Brake Specific Fuel Consumption:
The variation of brake specific fuel consumption with
brake power is plotted in the figure 9. It indicates that BSFC
reduces with the increase in induction rates. The BSFC
reduction for 0.026 kg/hr vapour induction rate when
compared to diesel injection case at full load is by 7.27%.
IV. CONCLUSION
Homogenous charge compression ignition is one of the
advanced combustion technologies. Diesel vapor induction
is one of the methods in achieving this. The amount of
vapors inducted can be increased with appropriate heat
exchanger design and thereby reducing the injected fuel to
minimum possible level. Diesel vapor induction requires
minimum temperature at which it vaporizes, this can be
attained only at higher loads if an exhaust gas operated heat
exchanger is used, so the engine has to be started and run
conventionally until the operating temperature is reached.
Once this temperature is reached it can be switched over to
the induction mode.
In the present investigation the goal of running the diesel
engine run with homogenous mixture of diesel vapour has
been achieved. At full load condition the brake thermal
efficiency increases by 11.2% with 0.026 kg/hr vapour
induction rate while the BSFC has reduced by 7.2% at the
same condition when compared to the baseline diesel
operation. However there is slight decrease in volumetric
efficiency.
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88, p. 169.




20
25
30
35
1.622 1.879 2.168 2.456 2.711 2.905 B
r
a
k
e

T
h
e
r
m
a
l

E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y

(
%
)
Brake Power (kW)
b (AI) (i) th(AI) (ii) th(AI) (iii) th(BI)
20
25
30
35
40
45
1.62 1.818 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
A
i
r
-
F
u
e
l

R
a
t
i
o
Brake Power (kW)
(A/F) (AI) (i) (A/F) (AI) (ii) (A/F) (AI) (iii) (A/F) (BI)
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
1.62 2 2.154 2.5 2.781 3.176
B
S
F
C

(
k
g
/
k
W
-
h
r
)
Brake Power (kW)
BSFC (AI) (i) BSFC (AI) (ii) BSFC (AI) (iii) BSFC (BI)